Victorian History — The British Empire

“Names designate, they do not describe.
There is no reason to expect states
which we happen - say - to call the
British or Roman or Chinese empires to have
any more in common than a series of individuals
whom we happen to call "John". When
we use the term "empire" other than as part of
a proper name, its meanings are equally various.
Henry VIII used it to mean a sovereign
kingdom. For most Japanese, it means a state,
irrespective of other considerations, ruled by
a soi-disant emperor. Ronald Reagan used it
as a mere term of abuse. Jean-Bedel Bokassa
used it without apparently thinking of its
meaning at all, in a fit of Napoleonic megalomania.
Between the sixteenth and eighteenth
centuries, a period often referred to as an age
of empires, there were at least thirty states in
the world that historians denote as such. They
had no common characteristics that collectively
distinguished them from other states of
the time. So there can be no restrictive theory
of empire, and the current vogue for comparative
and general histories of empire is
doomed to failure if pegged to an attempt to
define the indefinable. Yel historians and political scientists persist in hunting this Snark.”
— Felipe Herández-Armesto, “Imperial Measures,” TLS (9.24.10): 8.